How Bernie Sanders Learned to Love Campaigning in California

California is the linchpin of Mr. Sanders’s 2020 strategy, a state he hopes will turbocharge his campaign on Super Tuesday — or revive his candidacy if he underperforms in the early states.


By Reid J. Epstein
Dec. 24, 2019

Excerpt:

California, perhaps more than anywhere else, shows how the Sanders campaign has evolved from a movement of true believers into a strategic machine built to win a presidential nomination. As Mr. Sanders and his advisers look beyond the four early-voting states and toward Super Tuesday on March 3, they are making a big play to accrue as many delegates as possible from California, the biggest prize on the map.

Now Mr. Sanders, of Vermont, has the most robust California organization in the 2020 field. He has 80 campaign staff members in the state, more than any other candidate. He has spent time wooing the sorts of local officials whom he once derisively cast as part of the dreaded political establishment. And no 2020 candidate has held more public events in California than Mr. Sanders, according to a count maintained by The Sacramento Bee.

For now, Mr. Sanders is poised to win a large share of California’s delegates. He has placed first or second in five of six public polls of the state dating back to mid-October. People close to the campaign predict he will come in first or second — and more critically, above the 15 percent threshold needed to accrue delegates — in every congressional district.

“We do believe that if we do well in California, which we are primed to do, that the delegate breakout from California can be the moment that you walk toward the nomination,” said Faiz Shakir, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/us/politics/bernie-sanders-2020-california.html